Captain Caveman
Active Member
Okay a while back I told you folks I would let you in on my Insteon installation that involved many light switches in a large home.
The house has a pool and is about 6800sf with three electrical panels and a whole house surge suppressor. The outside walls and floors are poured concrete.
The HA equipment involved are a Cortexa Controller, Cortexa Touch Screen, Signalinc enhancers, Powerlinc V2 Controller Serial, Switchlinc V2 Dimmers, Switchlinc V2 Relays, Switchlinc V2 Paddles (to change color to almond), and a Global Cache GC100-06.
Day One -
The Cortexa Controller, Powerlinc V2 Serial Controller, and Signalinc enhancers were installed and as expected no problems.
The first 2 Insteon dimmers to be installed could not fit into the metal junction box, so we had to file the box to accommodate them.
After the dimmers were installed attempts to have the Cortexa auto discover the device failed, so the address of the switches was manually inputted. Then the switches were linked to the Cortexa and vice versa.
From the touch screen the switches turned off, on and dimmed, but they responded slower than expected. Also the switches did not respond to group commands.
Day Two –
A variety of dimmers and switches were installed in a 6 gang box. Besides the mass of wires we had to figure how the electrician had wired one of the previous switches in a 3-way circuit.
After much troubleshooting we came to realize that the 3-way circuit did not have a common wire at the other switch location. So we were forced to leave the regular switch installed at that end, but still used the Insteon dimmer in the 6 gang box. I later instructed the homeowner to not turn off the regular light switch because the Insteon switch would not be able to control the load.
Eight switches were installed. The six mentioned above and 2 others. Communications to these 8 switches were instantaneous and group commands worked flawlessly.
I also have to mention that after my guys installed the above eight switches I went to each and pressed the paddles up and down. It was upsetting to find that some of them had bad paddles. We had more paddles in stock so they were replaced, but it does take a fair amount of time to do this and my guys had already preinstalled them on the whole batch. When you have a million other things to do that stinks.
Day Three –
Three more lights switches were installed and the results were the same, no commands were missed and very responsive!
This led me to troubleshoot the first circuit of switches we installed, why was this circuit having problems, was the common and hot reversed, maybe some signal sucker, perhaps the whole house surge protection or could it be that 3 electrical panels were involved?
Another two Insteon switches were installed on the same problematic circuit and the first two dimmers installed were replaced. Same results slow responses and no response from group commands.
In addition to the original pair of Signalinc Enhancers another pair was installed in a different location of the house and the switches became much more responsive and never missed the on, off , dim commands. Also a couple of the switches started to respond to group commands but often missed.
What I did to troubleshoot the switches that did not respond at all to group commands was to make sure that the links were in the switch database. After multiple rewrites to the switches database all of them finally started to act on the group commands.
Conclusion –
After much research I found the problem to be two fold. First for unknown reasons that particular electrical circuit transmits Insteon signals weakly. Secondly the Insteon protocol will retransmit commands when it does not receive an acknowledgment from the devices, no retransmissions occur with group commands because no acknowledgement is expected.
The fix for the weak signals was made by installing another pair of signal enhancers. The group commands often being missed was remedied by repeating the command within Cortexa events such as “All Lights Off†or “Good Morningâ€.
Now the homeowner has 100% reliability! However we still have about 15 more light switches to install, security cameras and IR hell to go through! Then I’m sure the homeowner will want to add thermostats, more touch screens, etc. to the mix.
The house has a pool and is about 6800sf with three electrical panels and a whole house surge suppressor. The outside walls and floors are poured concrete.
The HA equipment involved are a Cortexa Controller, Cortexa Touch Screen, Signalinc enhancers, Powerlinc V2 Controller Serial, Switchlinc V2 Dimmers, Switchlinc V2 Relays, Switchlinc V2 Paddles (to change color to almond), and a Global Cache GC100-06.
Day One -
The Cortexa Controller, Powerlinc V2 Serial Controller, and Signalinc enhancers were installed and as expected no problems.
The first 2 Insteon dimmers to be installed could not fit into the metal junction box, so we had to file the box to accommodate them.
After the dimmers were installed attempts to have the Cortexa auto discover the device failed, so the address of the switches was manually inputted. Then the switches were linked to the Cortexa and vice versa.
From the touch screen the switches turned off, on and dimmed, but they responded slower than expected. Also the switches did not respond to group commands.
Day Two –
A variety of dimmers and switches were installed in a 6 gang box. Besides the mass of wires we had to figure how the electrician had wired one of the previous switches in a 3-way circuit.
After much troubleshooting we came to realize that the 3-way circuit did not have a common wire at the other switch location. So we were forced to leave the regular switch installed at that end, but still used the Insteon dimmer in the 6 gang box. I later instructed the homeowner to not turn off the regular light switch because the Insteon switch would not be able to control the load.
Eight switches were installed. The six mentioned above and 2 others. Communications to these 8 switches were instantaneous and group commands worked flawlessly.
I also have to mention that after my guys installed the above eight switches I went to each and pressed the paddles up and down. It was upsetting to find that some of them had bad paddles. We had more paddles in stock so they were replaced, but it does take a fair amount of time to do this and my guys had already preinstalled them on the whole batch. When you have a million other things to do that stinks.
Day Three –
Three more lights switches were installed and the results were the same, no commands were missed and very responsive!
This led me to troubleshoot the first circuit of switches we installed, why was this circuit having problems, was the common and hot reversed, maybe some signal sucker, perhaps the whole house surge protection or could it be that 3 electrical panels were involved?
Another two Insteon switches were installed on the same problematic circuit and the first two dimmers installed were replaced. Same results slow responses and no response from group commands.
In addition to the original pair of Signalinc Enhancers another pair was installed in a different location of the house and the switches became much more responsive and never missed the on, off , dim commands. Also a couple of the switches started to respond to group commands but often missed.
What I did to troubleshoot the switches that did not respond at all to group commands was to make sure that the links were in the switch database. After multiple rewrites to the switches database all of them finally started to act on the group commands.
Conclusion –
After much research I found the problem to be two fold. First for unknown reasons that particular electrical circuit transmits Insteon signals weakly. Secondly the Insteon protocol will retransmit commands when it does not receive an acknowledgment from the devices, no retransmissions occur with group commands because no acknowledgement is expected.
The fix for the weak signals was made by installing another pair of signal enhancers. The group commands often being missed was remedied by repeating the command within Cortexa events such as “All Lights Off†or “Good Morningâ€.
Now the homeowner has 100% reliability! However we still have about 15 more light switches to install, security cameras and IR hell to go through! Then I’m sure the homeowner will want to add thermostats, more touch screens, etc. to the mix.